2.5 out of 5 stars
Brief Synopsis
Librarian Janet Johnson is puzzled when she is invited—and practically dragged—to her first meeting of the Rejected Writers’ Book Club. This quirky group of women would much rather celebrate one another’s rejected manuscripts over cups of tea and slices of lemon cake than actually publish a book. But good friends are exactly what Janet needs after moving to the small town of Southlea Bay, Washington. Just as the ladies are about to raise a teacup to their five hundredth rejection letter, they receive bad news that could destroy one member’s reputation—and disband the group forever. To save the club, Janet joins her fellow writers on a wild road trip to San Francisco in search of the local publisher who holds the key to a long-buried secret. As they race to the finish line, they’ll face their fears—landslides, haunted houses, handsome strangers, ungrateful children—and have the time of their lives. (Source: Goodreads)
Review
The Rejected Writers’ Book Club by Suzanne Kelman is the second book I reviewed from NetGalley. I wanted to like this book so badly. It seemed right up my alley. A librarian in a small town joins a group of women and eventually makes friends. It sounded so great, but it ended up just feeling tedious and a jumbled mess.
The beginning started out a bit slow and the main character got on my nerves with her inability to stand up to a woman who just seemed to be steamrolling her. Then, the first part of the road trip, it seemed to get better. I enjoyed the first part of the road trip and the adventures they had. However, the longer the road trip went on, the more tedious it became. It was like everything you can EVER think of to go wrong during a road trip went wrong on this one. It just became too much. I got to the point where I was thinking, “Really? ANOTHER disaster? Really?” Some people who have reviewed this book found that portion of it to be funny. Unfortunately, I found it to be boring and felt it slowed down the story line. The ending, however, I felt was pretty good. I enjoyed the last chapter and the epilogue.
This book has a lot of potential, I just personally felt that it needed less drama and more interpersonal interactions. We hear a lot about what’s happening to the ladies, but we don’t see enough interaction between them and the others in the story. What characters we had were not as rounded as I would’ve liked to see. We get some background and see some growth and vulnerability in them but not as much as one would hope to see in a book this length. Perhaps as the series goes on we’ll learn more about them, but unfortunately, I’m not sure I’ll be around for it which is disappointing given how much I really wanted to like the book when I went into it.
*** I received a free e-book of this title through NetGalley in exchange for my fair and honest review. This in no way affected my rating of the book. All opinions and conclusions are my own. ***
Valerie's Musings 